What a first round that was: grit, determination, superb skills and complete brainfarts. Think the competition is wide open, and unsure where to make your Superbru picks? Don’t worry, our OvallyBalls experts on crack are here to progrocknIksate what will happen this weekend.
Deebee7 was quick off the mark with his predictions:
England, chastised and sobered by the realisation that they couldn’t simply kick ‘n bosh their way past feisty Scotland pick the biggest side in rugby history so they can KICK ‘N BOSH their way over, through and not around Italy, who, having realised that their first-up tackling was well below par and know what’s coming their way, pick 15 Saffas to BOSH BACK against England. Problem is, they’re playing for Italy because they can’t make it into better sides. England by 47 despite themselves.
Scotland, fresh from the Trashing of Twickers™ are primed, ready, purring and full of confidence for the visit of an abject Welsh side that had to rely on red mist and a brain fart to see off Ireland. The mercenary English Army and Tartan Boks who were apparently the only reason Edward’s Army tripped at Twickers have a solid tight five, fury in the loose forwards, flying outside backs and the Best 10 in the World™ ready to unleash hell on the journeymen from the Valleys. Thing is, it’s not their Game of the Season™ and with all their raison d’etre exhausted last week, Wales will give them the fright of their lives! But not enough to actually win it. Scotland by a couple in a low-scoring affair.
Ireland, stunned by stupidity and seething with intent, await the thoroughbreds of France, fresh from their opening training run against Italy. Expect a titanic struggle up front with neither pack giving an inch (easy on the Karl button, Iks). Ireland should be without Sexton which gives France a HUGE advantage behind the pie-munchers, and with the greyhounds and whippets willing to give it a lash, it could be a long afternoon at the Palindrome. But if the Irish are one thing, it’s bloody minded, determined and fucking difficult to boss around on their home patch (thank dog no World Cups hosted there yet). Too close to call!
Chimpie is more or less in agreement:
Scotland > Wales by 4
This goes against my deep-seated pessimism but got to back form at some point. General cohesion will keep Wales pinned back but usual inability to get points on the board will keep the boyos in it. Wales have some quality players in there and they’ll get over the line a couple of times.
England > Italy by 30
Hope Italy put up more of fight than last week. They’ve got a few bright sparks – like the look of Garbisi – but this is a very young and inexperienced team, too early for them to start pulling out results. England will grind and kick Italy down and run up a respectable score with the Best Fly-Half in the World playing. Eddie will then drop Ford for the next game.
Ireland > France by 2
Yes, I’m going out on a limb here for Ireland without human missile POM to put a shock one over on France. Would it be that much of a shock though? France ran up 35 points against Ireland last time out but there was only an 8 point difference at full time. Ireland at home hurting after last week’s effort vs. Wales, I’m going with a home victory here.
ClydeMillarWynant is ever the misfit:
Wales > Scotland by 1
Entire game takes place in Wales half giving Scotland an impressive 6-0 lead only for LRZ to go the length of the field at the death. Biggar converts from the touchline and bounces around on his space-hoppers to general disgust.
France > Ireland by 6
Ireland are just the sort of miserable bastards to spoil everything by grinding down France and stopping the beautiful game at source. But there’s been positive beaver news today.
England > Italy by 40
Italy are crap.
BorderBoy couldn’t resist bringing Prog into it:
Nazareth > Budgie (by 10)
Genesis > PFM (by 25)
U2 < Lazuli (by 12)
SladeIs#42 is sucking up to the mister:
Wales> Scotland by 4 – winners have enough ‘dog’ to resist Scots missing last week’s adrenalin rush
Ireland > France by 3 – game of the week-end – Ireland a team full of grit and experience
England > Italy by 25 – in reality, score could be anything dependant on tactics adopted: an inaccurate kicking game could make it closer, as could a good performance by Italy up to the 60 minute mark causing confusion in England’s headless ranks. If Italy collapse England could get 70. Whatever, it’s unlikely to be a credit to the Competition. As stated above, Ford will be back to the bench afterwards and George restored.
Craigsman is getting all political on our arses:
Sturgeon > Drakeford by 5LePen Macron > Adams by 10
Bojo > Berlusconi by 15
I was just going to include far right politicians / arseholes. I managed a few arseholes but couldn’t be bothered to Welsh political arseholery.
Sunbeamtim goes for the philosophical approach:
Looks like Big Faz realises that France are going to hammer Ireland whichever way, so has thrown in a 9 and 10 as sacrificial lambs to protect young payers. End of JGP and BB’s International careers ?
Very enthusiastic about all the talk of how disgraceful Italy are, and how they should be thrown out of the comp, and how its a non game for a proper side. I see Italy as being fitter and more coherent than they have ever been, and one step off defensively is all it takes to be hammered by a Tier one side. Setting someone up for a big fall somewhere this season.
Scotland and Wales both hammered by injuries, too close to call, game of the weekend.
Flair99‘s been watching my nightmares:
England by 29
Scotland by 7
France by 11.
Don’t harrumph me, I was wrong twice last week.
Not sure the omission of Sexton and Murray is a good thing for France but it is certainly a good thing for them. Enough of these concussed players blaming the doctors. I hope they recover soon.
Onna telly this week
Friday 12th February
| Gloucester v Bristol | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
| Sale v Bath | 20:00 | BT Sport Extra |
Saturday 13th February
| England v Italy | 14:15 | ITV |
| Harlequins v Leicester | 16:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Exeter v London Irish | 16:15 | BT Sport Extra |
| Scotland v Wales | 16:45 | BBC1 / S4C |
Sunday 14th February
| Worcester v Wasps | 13:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Ireland v France | 15:00 | ITV |
Ovally Balls 
That disciplinary nonsense is just the icing on the cake. Bigger ban than POM’s effort? What a joke
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Chimpie, the “reasoning” is of course that Fagerson contested the red, he admitted guilt but that it should have been a yellow.
Or at least we think that is the reasoning, the decisions are not in any way open or transparent.
This is supposed to be a legal process, when you say “Yup, I did that, but here is why it’s not as bad as it appears at first”, does that get you a longer sentence in a court?
It’s not a “not guilty” plea, more like a defence lawyer asking for things to be taken into consideration after an admission of guilt, but here you get a longer “sentence” for that.
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@ticht
It’s not a million miles away from Biscuitgate
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Australian Super Rugby starts this weekend (as if none of you knew!) giving us some respite from the dreadfully dull 6N thing. I’ve got the Tahs over the Reds by 16 and Brumbies over my beloved Force by 12. I literally have zero idea about either match and if they can field a match day 23 but that won’t stop me. No sir.
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Let’s face it, the blazers don’t tolerate an uppity little player giving an opinion. You’re there to provide biscuits, humility, contrition and grovelling in equal measure. Anything else is tantamount to treason. ZF was lucky he’s not on the way to the glue factory now.
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POM woulda got three extra caps if Evil World Rugby™ was still based in Dublin. System is a joke though.
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Siya Kolisi unveiled at the Sharks in Durban. Could be an interesting season or two if he and Sikhumbuzo Notshe gel. Notshe left the Stormers a season or two ago as a frustrated man, but has thrived in the more expansive style the Sharks were playing in Super Rugby before it was curtailed. Will be interesting to see if the combo makes it into the Bok set up, with Vermeulen now in his twilight days.
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“with Vermeulen now in his twilight days”
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,well, he is a rugby god
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OT, “biscuitgate” was about Ventor(?) disrespecting the process and the panel, so he copped a longer ban.
This decision indicates that there is no circumstance under which questioning a decision will be tolerated without further sanction.
That just doesn’t seem right to me.
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If that was Brendan Venter the former Saracens coach then I would imagine he could have talked anyone into increasing his ban.
Fagerson should pretty obviously just be punished for the offence itself, it’s not as if there isn’t a variety of opinion as to how bad it was.
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CMW, it appears that POM was sent off earlier this season too.
Oh and the variety of opinion included the TMO at the time.
I just can’t see how admitting foul play, but questioning the severity of it leads to further sanction.
If the panel had said, “Ok, you disagree, tough. Three weeks, same as the last guy”, I don’t think anyone could have argued it.
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I’d certainly have hoped he’d have got less than POM. Of course it would have made for nice symmetry with Finngate if they’d decided it should only have been a yellow, but once it was flagged up I think it was bound to be a (lower end) red.
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Ticht – whilst I agree with you, this approach is the same way I discipline my children when they protest so I can’t see a problem either.
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@Craigs – You punish them a second time several days after they misbehave? Good work.
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I assume they get extra as well if they’ve forgotten what it was all about.
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Excellent. If they’ve had more than one infraction they’ll never know what they’ve been punished for on a particular day. Imagine the resulting constant state of fear and uncertainty is an added bonus.
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Miner don’t realise they’re supposed to supply the biscuits for when we’re all making up afterwards. Had to lock one of them under the stairs when she had the cheek to ask me for one.
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Don’t know what that miner’s doing in there. Anyway the essential isolation supplies have been delivered by a friend. On the downside all I’m doing now is putting off stripping wallpaper.
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If the Kidz brought decent biscuits to a disciplinary event I’d be inclined to be pretty impressed.
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Craigs’ house sounds like a particularly harsh gulag
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Stripping wallpaper? You have all the fun CMW
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@Cimpie – You’d still have paid for them in some way so why should it help their cause?
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Now thinking about it the disciplinary panel could meet to discuss some forgotten set to from the last week or so and I could get me some helpers with the wallpaper out of it…
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” all I’m doing now is putting off stripping wallpaper.”
You moving house?
(the old ones are the best)
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it would at least show some attempt at contrition / taking on personal responsibility and tactical thinking about helping their cause. Rather than just bemoaning the unfairness of life in general.
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Eldest wanted to paint the melbury rather than do school work yesterday. Did point out that he had all of half term to do that and no. he wasn’t getting out of school work.
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I think we all want to paint the melbury.
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To be honest I’m probably with Craigs in expecting contrition, apology etc before the kids get back on the field. Certainly can’t be doing with this “You don’t have to say sorry if you’re not sorry” stuff that Mrs CMW peddles.
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@Chimpie – I guess the time to worry will be when they turn up with a good lawyer as well.
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I’m doing a lockdown course on the history of music – from the middle ages up through renaissance etc etc to modern and postmodern eras.
This week is mostly about Mozart. He wrote his first full symphony in London, aged 8.
That must be worthy of a sanction.
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Works for the Cabinet.
Though perhaps Fagerson should have gone down the Pritti Patel apology route:
“I’m sorry that you feel that my actions deserved a red card, even though people who know what they’re talking about agree with me that it should have been yellow.”
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That sounds like a very interesting course, Ticht. Where are you doing it?
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@Ticht – This particular wallpaper has been nicely painted over so it would be a real shame not to take it with us.
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Brookter showing a shocking lack of understanding of lockdown guidelines there.
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@Ticht – To be on the safe side you’d better tell him you’re doing it at home just in case he’s trying to catch you out.
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Brookter, it’s online, via coursera https://www.coursera.org/
The course is called Introduction to Classical Music, by Craig Wright who is a music professor at Yale.
You learn all sorts of groovy things, like in the Renaissance women weren’t allowed to speak or sing in church (Corinthians, apparently) and so the high parts were sung by choirboys, men in falsetto voice or by castrati. The last castrato was Alessandro Moreschi, who died as recently as 1922.
Also, Martin Luther was a pretty handy composer.
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It’s probably not a course for people who know anything about the subject, but for know-nothings like me it’s great.
It comes with a humongous spotify playlist of all the music they mention
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Ticht — thanks! It sounds like a good course. I’ll check it out.
That Luther though: he once through a dog out of a window on the top floor of a tower because he thought the dog was possessed by the devil, so he’s going to have to do a lot better than write a couple of nifty tunes to wipe out his reputation as an utter shit
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“he’s going to have to do a lot better than write a couple of nifty tunes to wipe out his reputation as an utter shit”
Why, did he argue that it was only a yellow card offence?
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CMW: I love the idea that you think I’m looking for an excuse to go out, when my entire life has been spent trying to think of excuses to stay in rather than have to go work/parties/shopping etc….
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Brookter, one of the good things about the course is that there are so many leads that need following up, just in the case of Luther there is mention of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, this could take a while!
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CMW: because he was an utter shit of course.
TBF, he may have been mentally ill — being more serious for a second, his visions / behaviour would probably be treated as a mental illness these days.
Have you read Tom Holland’s Dominion? It’s excellent, but it’s noticeable how many of the leading figures of Christianity in the past have clearly been suffering from we’d call personality disorders or other mental illness (apologies to Beadle if I’m getting the terminology wrong).
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Ticht,
If that sort of thing interests you (and you haven’t already read it, of course…), then the book I’ve just mentioned (Dominion) is brilliant.
It’s basically an argument that Christianity has influenced western thought so much that even devout atheists (like me) criticise the church using concepts (like human rights, reason etc) which are themselves profoundly and uniquely Christian. He takes you right back from the Ancient Persians to the present day, explaining how Christian thought developed, and he discusses the Reformation(s) and Counter-Reformation.
I think he overstates the argument now and then, but it’s a fascinating and very well written book.
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Also, Chek.
Anybody hear from Chek recently. I miss Chek.
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Ruck thinks POM may be going to Saracens at the end of the season. Is it time to start suspecting some sort of evil cabal type conspiracy contributed to his entry level 6 week ban being reduced to 3 for previous good behaviour, when it was his second red of the season ? ( Altho the first one was for two yellows, so incurred no further disciplinary action ).
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Might give it a go. I enjoyed Rubicon and Millennium and haven’t read any of his for a while.
Rubicon I think I was bound to enjoy given the subject matter. Millennium perhaps took on rather too much, it covered a load of stuff I knew/know very little about though so I got a lot out of it. He’s very readable of course, I imagine the more recent ones are the same on that front?
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I think Craigs said he is in touch with Chek.
Is the Dominion book the one with Dali’s Crucifixion on the front? There seems to be two with different subtitles, is that just because one is hardback and one paperback, perhaps?
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May well look that book out, Brookter, have recently read a book about the whole malarkey, from a factual point of view, and was surprised at how little I had previously understood about the whole shenanigans. Also made me think that old Henry 8 handled the whole business quite efficiently compared to the bloody mess that was going on in the rest of Europe.
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Enugu State
The name of the state derives from its capital city, Enugu. The word “Enugu” (from Enu Ugwu) means “the top of the hill”. The first European settlers arrived in the area in 1909, led by a British mining engineer named Albert Kitson. In his quest for silver, he discovered coal in the Udi Ridge. The Colonial Governor of Nigeria Frederick Lugard took a keen interest in the discovery, and by 1914 the first shipment of coal was made to Britain.
You know he’s related. First polluted Nigeria with coal, then the UK with drivel.
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Anybody hear from Chek recently. I miss Chek.
I had a very brief LinkedIn chat with Chek late last year for an anniversary thing of his. Reminded him about OB and he said he’d been busy, but thanks for the reminder, he would try and pop in.
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